In a known microscope system in the related art, the wavefront of a laser beam is freely changed to arbitrarily control the spatial distribution and intensity thereof by controlling the phase of a coherent light source with a spatial light modulator (SLM), and a laser beam having desired spatial distribution and intensity is radiated onto a specimen (for example, see PTL 1).
In the microscope system disclosed in PTL 1, an SLM is built into the microscope. By controlling the wavefront of a laser beam such that it cancels out aberrations generated by an objective lens and the microscope optical system, the laser beam can form a spot at an arbitrary position in a specimen.